Paul Krugman Wins Scripps Howard Foundation Award

Paul Krugman of The New York Times is among the winners of this year’s Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Award winners, announced today. The foundation cited Krugman’s commentary “for courageously and prophetically clarifying complex economic issues, and months later influencing Washington policymakers with his insightful explanation of the global financial crisis.”

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
Rob Barry, Jack Dolan and Matthew Haggman of The Miami Herald receive the $25,000 Ursula and Gilbert Farfel prize for the series “Borrowers Betrayed,” an investigation of the Florida mortgage crisis that led to changes in state laws, policies and personnel.

Finalists: Tom Lasseter, McClatchy Newspapers, “Guantanamo: Beyond the Law;” and Amy Goldstein and Dana Priest, The Washington Post, “Careless Detention: The Medical Treatment of Immigrants”
PUBLIC SERVICE REPORTING
Las Vegas Sun receives $10,000 and the Roy W. Howard award for revealing how shoddy safety practices and lax government oversight contributed to 12 construction deaths in 18 months on the Las Vegas Strip. The stories led to sweeping safety improvements.

HUMAN INTEREST WRITING
Sean Kirst of The Post-Standard, Syracuse, N.Y., receives $10,000 and the Ernie Pyle award for leaving readers with lasting memories of the people and circumstances he introduced in his column.

Finalists: Tom Knudson, The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee, “Sierra Warming;” and The Philadelphia Inquirer, (Tom Avril, John Shiffman and John Sullivan), “Smoke and Mirrors: The Subversion of the EPA”
WASHINGTON REPORTING
David Willman of the Los Angeles Times receives $10,000 and the Raymond Clapper award for revealing the FBI and Justice Department’s botched anthrax investigations that ended with a suicide rather than an arrest and a trial.

Finalists: Carolyn Lochhead, San Francisco Chronicle; and the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times

EDITORIAL CARTOONING
Mike Luckovich of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution receives $10,000 and a trophy for his ability to incite multiple emotions with the reading of a single cartoon.

Finalists: Don Asmussen, San Francisco Chronicle; and Alexander Hunter, The Washington Times
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE TO THE FIRST AMENDMENTJosh Margolin and Ted Sherman of The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., receive $10,000 and the Edward Willis Scripps award for “Big Time, Big Costs: The high price of Rutgers sports,” which pitted the newspaper against the state university over internal records, and led to reforms and new personnel.

Finalists: Joe Adams, The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville; and Aki Soga and Michael Townsend of The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press
PHOTOJOURNALISM
Michael Robinson Chávez of the Los Angeles Times receives $10,000 and a trophy for his ability to work intimately and analytically in unfamiliar cultures and situations, from Georgia, Mumbai, Nepal, Mexico and rural areas of the United States.

Finalists: Don Bartletti, Los Angeles Times; and Damon Winter, The New York Times

BUSINESS/ECONOMICS REPORTING
Farah Stockman of The Boston Globe receives $10,000 and the William Brewster Styles award for identifying U.S. corporations that were covertly using international relationships and offshore operations to avoid taxes, side-step U.S. laws and deny workers’ rights.

Finalists: Lynn Arditi, The Providence (R.I.) Journal; and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Little Rock, (C.S. Murphy and Amy Upshaw)
EXCELLENCE IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA/RADIO
National Public Radio receives $10,000 and the Jack R. Howard award for “Dirty Money,” a series by Tanya Ballard Brown, John Burnett, Quinn O’Toole and Marisa Penaloza that exposed abuse of search-and-seizure laws under the guise of drug enforcement.

EXCELLENCE IN ELECTRONIC MEDIA/TV-CABLE
Downtown Community Television Center of New York City receives $10,000 and the Jack R. Howard Award for “Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery,” a documentary by Rebecca Abrahams, Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill that took HBO viewers to the gravesites of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Finalists: Doug Smith, WTVT-TV, Tampa, Fla., “Small Town Justice;” and WTHR-TV, Indianapolis, “Broken Buses”
COLLEGE CARTOONIST
Grant Snider of The University News at the University of Missouri-Kansas City receives $10,000 and the Charles M. Schulz award for comic strips that reflect the influence of graphic novels.

Finalists: Joseph Devens, The Daily Texan, The University of Texas at Austin; and Christopher Sharron, Daily Kent Stater, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio
JOURNALISM TEACHER OF THE YEAR
Charles Davis, associate professor of journalism studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia, receives $10,000 and the Charles E. Scripps award. His school also receives a $5,000 grant. The award is given in cooperation with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
JOURNALISM ADMINISTRATOR OF THE YEAR
Marilyn Weaver, chair of the department of journalism at Ball State University, Muncie, Ind., receives $10,000 and the Charles E. Scripps award. Her school also receives a $5,000 grant. The award is given in cooperation with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

About Jeff Pijanowski

I spent about 30 years as a newspaper editor, mostly at Newsday on Long Island, where I served in various positions ranging from copy editor to a three-year stint as a news editor. I also spent time as the wire editor at the Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise, an assistant city editor at the Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph and as the editor-in-chief at Central Penn Business Journal. I am a graduate of two (yes, two) buyouts from two different news organizations. After my second buyout, I decided to change professions, and now I am a senior manager at a nonprofit organization. But I still have a keen interest in politics and the media, and I like to keep in touch with my inner-journalist self.